CHAPTER 1 1

WHAT MAKES LIFE HUMAN?

I. THE STORY OF RISHYASRINGA

1. The Context
'Let noble thoughts come to us from every side,' said the Rgvedic poet.1 Let us take this as a general permission to stan our discussion anywhere. In this chapter, we propose to start the discussion of the problem of purusharthas by relating the Story of Rishyasringa from the Mahabharata precisely because it brings to light an importar~t insight regarding the interrelationship of the four purusharthas.2

The story is told in the context of the Mahabharata which is regarded as the Fifth Veda with its more than one lakh stanzas. The Mahabharata, it must be noted, has molded our character and civilization by its gospel of purusharthas which like a golden thread runs through all the complex movements in the epic.

Why do we want to begin the discussion by narrating a story like that of Rishyasringa, it might be asked. The reason for such a start is twofold. First of all, it brings out an important point that we want to make in our thesis. Namely, the exclusive following of any one purushartha is fallacious and is bound to be

disastrous. Secondly, the Story makes the discussion audio-visual.

2. universifiability of the Message

Before we go on to a narration of the story, a ~ 3 r about d the universifiability of its message is in order. The point of the story is universifiable in the sense that Rishyasringa's predicament is indicative of our typical human condition referred to at the end of the Introductory Chapter. The special feature of the strings of argument in our discussion will be that it is considered against the background of Rishyasringa's predicament. This special feature brings out the relevance and currency of the

purusharthas today and for tomorrow not necessarily because the Mahabharata is
15

scriptural but because the predicament of Rishyasringa and the issues involved therein are universalizable.

As already hinted at, the story of Rishyasringa implies what we want to affirm

in the thesis: That is, the pumsharthas give content to life, are interactional, form one single goal and thus lead to the ultimate goal of being meaningfully alive.

3. Lomasa Narrates the Story

The Pandavas during their vanavasa (exile) went on a pilgrimage and reached an ashrama (hermitage) called punnyam at the bank of river Kaushiki. At that time, the sage Lomasa, the head of that hermitage, told Yudhistira this Story of Rishyasringa. It may be summed up as follows:

Once upon a time there was a severe famine for want of rain in the kingdom of Anga. How to save the country from this famine became a matter of serious concern for the king. The only way out, according to the Brahmanas who advise the king on such matters, was to fetch Rishyasringa, the young sage, to the kingdom.

Rishyasringa lived in a forest and led a life of perfect celibacy.

By his

austerities, he had acquired the power to bring down rain wherever he went. He lived with his father Vibhandaka. In such a systematic manner did Vibhandaka bring up his son in the seclusion of the forest that he did not come in touch with any other human being, man or woman! Now, to bring Rishyasringa from such a seclusion to the kingdom so that there would be enough rain was a real problem for Lomapada, the king of Anga. After a series of consultations with his courtiers, the king finally decided to send the most charming courtesans of the city to lull Rishyasringa to Anga.

Well equipped for the mission, the damsels set out in a boat which looked like a floating hermitage and reached the river near Vibhandaka's hermitage. Mooring the boat in the river, the damsels entered the periphery of the hermitage. Having secretly ascertained the time when Vibhandaka would be away, one of the beautiful damsels let us call her Vaisali after the Malayalam Movie - entered the hermitage. And she accosted Rishyasringa the way the rishis (sages) of those days used to: "How are you? Are the penances of the rishis of the forest proceeding satisfactorily? Is your study of the Vedas progrcssing...?" Never before did Rishyasringa behold such a beautiful human form and hear such a sweet voice. The moment he beheld this graceful woman, though without knowing that it was a woman! the instinctive urge for the company of the opposite sex began to work on his mind. The youthful anchorite thought that she was a young sage like himself.

"You seem to be a bright brahmacharin (celibate). Who are you? Where is your hermitage? I bow to you. What are the austerities you practice?" Thus saying, he rendered her the customary offerings. But she said to him: "I am not worthy to receive your prostrations, but let me reciprocate your greetings and salutations in the manner we are used to". So saying, she embraced him warmly, gave him fruits and sweets, decorated him with perfumed garlands, and served him with drinks. Embracing him again, she then gently slipped out of the hermitage fearing the return of the sage Vibhandaka, but actually saying that it was time for her agnihotra sacrifice.

On return Vibhandaka found that the face of his hermitage as well as the face of his son were clouded and disturbed as if by a storm of passion. He was shocked to see that the usual simple duties of the hermitage had been neglected. Vibhandaka was very much troubled and asked his son to explain what had happened.

In his simplicity and ingenuity, Rishyasringa replied: "A brahmacharin of wonderful form was here. The beauty and sweetness of his voice defy description. Listening to him and looking into his eyes filled my inner being with indescribable joy and affection. When he embraced me - which it seems is his customary greeting -

1 felt a kind of happiness that I have never felt before, no, not even while eating the
sweetest fruits. 1 long for his company; my heart pants to see him ...."

When Rishyasringa had thus brokenly expressed his new yearnings and disturbances. Vibhandaka understood what had taken place. He told his son that it was no brahmacharin 'but a malignant demon bent on beguiling them and hindering their penances and austerities. So he advised his son not to let such demons come near him. Vibhandaka then combed the whole forest in vain for three days on end to find his son's fair visitors and returned baffled. Then on another occasion when Vibhandaka had gone out to bring roots and fruits Vaisali again stole into the hermitage. As soon as Rishyasringa saw her he jumped up and ran to greet her gushingly, like pent up water surges out of a reservoir that has sprung a leak.

Even without waiting for prompting this time, Rishyasringa went near her and after the customary salutations said: "0 shining brahmacharin, before my father returns let us go to your hermitage."
This was precisely what she had hoped for and worked for. So together they

went and entered the boat which had been made to look like a hermitage and sailed for the kingdom of Anga. When they reached Anga, the young sage surely knew more about the world and its ways than he had done in the forest.

The heartiest of welcomes awaited him in Anga. The king was delighted to see Rishyasringa. And, as foretold by the Brahmanas, the moment Rishyasringa set his foot in Anga rain began to pour down, the rivers and lakes were full and the people rejoiced. The king gratefully gave his daughter Santa in marriage to Rishyasringa. Thus all ended as had been planned. The king, however, felt uneasy because he feared Vibhandaka's wrath. 'fie sage might come in search of his son and pronounce a curse on the king. Therefore, in order to mollify Vibhandaka, the king lined the route the sage would take with cattle and kind and instructed the cowherds in charge to tell Vibhandaka that they were all Rishyasringa's servants and had come to welcome and honor their master's father and to wait on him.

Guessing his son's whereabouts right, Vibhandaka crossed intervening rivers and villages and marched to the capital of Anga as if to burn the king in his anger. But when he saw at every stage of his journey the magnificent cattle which belonged to his son and the respectful welcome by his son's servants, his angry mood melted away. A great welcome awaited him in the capital. In the king's palace he was pleased to see his son with his beautiful wife Santa seated in state like the king of the gods in heaven. Vibhandaka blessed the king and he asked his son to join him in the forest after the birth of a son. Rishyasringa did as his father bade him.

4. What Strikes Us First

The story ends with this note: "Like Damayanti and Nala, Sita and Rama, Arundhati and Vaisishtha, Lopamudra and Agastya, and Draupati and Yourself, Santa and Rishyasringa repaired to the forest in the fullness of time and spent their lives in mutual love and worship of God. This is the hermitage where Rishyasringa lived. Bathe in these waters and be purified. "

Let us for a moment 'bathe in these waters' in order to be purified. In this story there are at least three things that strike us first. First of all it makes us laugh. Secondly it gives us a message. And thirdly it throws light on the problem of purusharthas.

(i). The Laughter. Anybody can see that Vyasa, the author of this story, has burst into a laughter. We too begin to laugh when we listen to how Rishyasringa describes the new brahmacharin to his father. Now the question is: who is it or what is it that Vyasa is laughing at and is provoking us to laugh at? We might think that Rishyasringa is the one Vyasa is laughing at. But we are thoroughly mistaken. For it is his father who made him ignorant of kama. If so, the one to be laughed at is Vibhandaka and not Rishyasringa. Not only that. Not even Vibhandaka was free from Kama and Artha. By his austerities he was supposed to have gained control over his feelings. Though he was red with anger at the loss of his son, we see that his anger subsided and gradually replaced by satisfaction at the sight of the wealth and prosperity of his son. Thus the poet has added to the laughter. But Vibhandaka is redeemed from this ridicule because it is said that instead of staying and enjoying with his son, he returned to the forest and directed his son to follow him later.

If both Rishyasringa and Vibhandaka are thus absolved from ridiculousness, whom does the poet aim at? What is it that he is trying to drive home to us? The poet is obviously laughing at any parent in our society who tries to bring up his child in a manner similar to the one adopted by Vibhandaka. Such children might develop a tendency to be attracted by prostitutes. Of course, Rishyasringa was, through that process, lucky finally to get the king's daughter in marriage. But there is no reason to believe that all such young men would be that lucky.3

(ii). The Message. Thus, the object of laughter in this story becomes a message for us. The moral is this: To think that one can lead a life of celibacy if brought up in complete isolation from sensual pleasures or if kept ignorant of them is a fallacy. In spite of all the precautions Vibhandaka took, at the slightest provocations the natural instinct came out with all its might. precautions is obvious. So the pointlessness of such

If so, what follows from this by implication is important for our discussion of purusharthas. Namely, addiction to any one purushartha to the exclusion of other purusharthas is bound to be disastrous. The Story of Rishyasringa makes this point abundantly clear. If it is ridiculous to pursue one purushartha at the expense of the other purushartha(s), then the question of how the various purusharthas are interrelated becomes crucial.

(iii). The Problem of Punsharthas. The Story of Rishyasringa can and does throw light on the question of purusharthas. The story certainly implies that the four purusharthas are not really ultimate ends but seem to be attitudinal means to an end. What then is that end? The end is indeed clear from the overall impression the story makes, namely: the well being of the kingdom of Anga. We may generalize it by saying that the end is to live in a meaningful manner. To translate it into the Gita language, the final goal is lokasamgraha. We intend to confirm this point as we go along. (iv). Issues Slurred Over. Before we go ahead, certain issues in the story which do not interest us here need to be mentioned too, even though following them up might be rewarding. One such issue is: why did Vibhandaka bring up his son the way he did? It is said that his son was born of his sexual perversion. If so,

Vibhandaka might have thought that at least his son should be spared of similar

tempting situations. But then, should the son pay for the sexual aberrations of his father? This is a question worth pursuing, though not in this study.

Another issue is:

Why did Vaisali consider herself unfit to receive

Rishyasringa's prostrations? Is it sinful for a courtesan to receive the conventional kind of salutations? This again does not interest us at present.

5. The Basic Issues, Once Again

Instead of taking up questions of this kind, let us now look at some of the basic issues the story .presupposes. Vyasa, the authcr of the story, is certainly

laughing at us, the present day society. If so, as has already been said, our tendency to follow any one purushartha to the exclusion of other purusharthas is really

ridiculous. Though ridiculous, this tendency of ours raises two important questions: (a) How do we get into this ridiculous situation? @) How are we to redeem ourselves from this sorry state of affairs? Any satisfactory answer to these questions should take into account the following issues.

(i). Why do the characters in this story live the way they do? What motivates them to act the way they do? What makes life worth living as far as Rishyasringa is concerned? What is good and what is right conduct in the case of characters like Rishyasringa? 'I am confused as to the ultimate goal 1 should be striving for' is the impression Rishyasringa gives. In other words, the question boils down to this: What is the ultimate significance of human life? (ii). The Indian classical tradition has spelled out the significance of human life in terms of the four purusharthas. If so, what exactly is the traditional

understanding of these four purusharthas, first in general and then in particular? What shall Rishyasringa make of it in the context of his predicament?

(iii). How are the four purusharthas related to each other? According to the general tradition, the four purusharthas are believed to be mutually exclusive and are said to be in an ascending order of authority. Is this understanding justifiable? What are the undesirable consequences of such an understanding? How does it apply in the case of Rishyasringa? Can it give practical guidance to Rishyasringa?

(iv). The story of Rishyasringa seems l o imply that the samnyasa way of life is better and superior. Is such a position tenable? Should one strive for samnyasa and thus for moksha at the expense of the other stages of life and goals of life such as dharma, artha o r kam,a? This is an important question in the sense that to consider the purusharthas is to consider the samnyasa way of life. For, the ultimate values involved in both are the same. Not only that. Samnyasa has been a way of life not only in India but also all over the world. (v).

A distinction is often drawn between two different forms of

purusharthas: the one as characteristic of our spiritual being and the other as characteristic of our material nature. What is the point of this distinction? Is it, as ordinarily supposed, between the good as intrinsic and the good as extrinsic or instrumental, or is it between the good as secondary and the good as primary? Or is it neither of these two but a third? When does a purushartha become representative of our good: It has been said that a purushartha becomes a representative of our good only when it reflects therein the spiritual element. What if if it does not? Does it still remain so even if it does not reflect it? What are we to make of it in the case of Rishyasringa'? (vi). Let us now focus the whole problem in a slightly different manner: What is the definition of purushartha? Purushartha literally means 'meaning of life'. But it is not merely that: the nature of this meaning makes it a reason for our rule of behavior. For, all the four goals are meant to motivate us to act. While the

first three p u n s h a r t h a s known as Yrivarga' constitute the earthly justification, the last one, moksha, constitutes the divine justification. Now the question is: How are these reasons related to one another? How do they determine the punsharthas? In other words, how are the fundamental goals and right conduct interrelated, and that too, in the case of Rishyasringa?

(vii). How should the interwnnectedness of the various purusharthas be treated so that we may be absolved from being ridiculed? Even if we assume for the present that the purusharthas do exercise mutual control and therefore they all together form one' paramapurushartha the question still remains: Are the

purusharthas really goals or merely means? If means, then what is the ultimate goal? Can lokasamgraha, being meaningfully alive, be the final goal?

All these are issues that await content in subsequent chapters. Of these, let us now turn to the first. Namely, the general question of the meaning of life.

6. Conclusion
As far as the theory of purusharthas are concerned, the point of the story is

obvious: The well-being of the kingdom of Anga is the ultimate goal. This goal can be generalized as logasamgraha. To abstract it further, to live is the ultimate goal. purusharthas are what make this goal meaningful, provided that they are taken together as complementary. This means that any one purushartha if followed

exclusively ceases to be a purushartha. Our task in subsequent chapters will be to

examine philosophically this point the story illustrates.

1 1 . MEANING OF LIFE

1. Why this Clarification

Life is meaningful. This is one of the assumptions of the Story of Rishyasringa as well as of the Theory of Purusharthas. Is this an unquestionable assumption? Is life really meaningful? There is certainly room for this doubt. For, neither the scheme of purusharthas nor any other theory has explained in isolation all the secrets of the real and ultimate meaning of life. That is to say that the meaning of life is not something that exists already in all clarity; rather, it is something to be created and organized from all that is given within the integral human situation. This is the basic impetus behind our search for the meaning of life as it has been understood and lived out in our major philosophical traditions. Since purushartha means 'meaning of life' and form an integral part of Indian world view it is imperative for us to clarify what we mean by 'meaning of life'.

2. Philosophical Pessimism
What exactly do we mean by meaning of life? Are we using the word 'life' universally or are we looking for the meaning of life of a particular human being like Rishyasringa? Before looking at this distinction, we need to look into yet another question first: To ask what the meaning of life is, is to assume that life is itself meaningful. But what if, if there are people who doubt whether life has any meaning at all?
As a matter of fact, There are philosophers who conclude that life is

meaningless, as is clear from the following examples.

It would have been better if the world had never existed. This is the position

of Arthur Schopenhauer. We take this example from the western tradition simply because he is the best known pessimist in philosophy. According to him, life is a
business which does not cover its expenses.4

25

His chief metaphysical reason for this philosophical pessimism is the idea that existence is based on will which causes manifold wants and desires leading ultimately to frustration. And his empirical reason for pessimism is the fact that the world is full of pain and misery. In short,in the words of Clarence Darrow, another pessimist, life is an 'awful joke's, 'a stupid fraud'6, and therefore no reasonable meaning can be given to it.

Now coming to the Indian Tradition, we find that there are in it Some thinkers who bordered on philosophical pessimism. But fortunately they have survived it. Kanadan, a sage and philosopher, founder of the Vaisesika System, seems initially to conclude that life is mea11in~less.7Similarly, Buddha also felt pessimistic at the sight of pain and misery but later discovered the aryasatyas and thus survived the pessimistic outlook on life.

It is not our intention here to go into an appraisal of the types of pessimism just summed up. Rather, it is taken up so that one may not simply assume that life is meaningful without giving some serious thought to it. When our discussion of the meaning of life becomes sharper we may find that philosophical pessimism is irrational. But we must arrive at this conclusion rather than assume it. That we may find that philosophical pessimism is irrational does not, of course, mean that individuals cannot have good reasons for feeling pessimistic concerning their own lives and purposes. The following distinctions we make would clearly show that philosophical pessimism is unsustainable.

3. Two Things We Want to Know

Let us now focus the problem this way: what do we want to know when we ask whether life has a meaning? While asking thus, we want to know at least two
26

things. (i). Whether a particular

person's life has (or had) any meaning. This is

asking a different question indeed. For here we are asking whether certain purposes are to be found in hisher life.

(ii). The other thing we want to know when we ask whether life has any meaning is: Whether there is a superhuman being who fashioned us humans along with other objects in the world in order to serve some purpose. In other words, to use an analogy, what we want to know is whether our role is something like that of a string in a lute in a symphony.

4. The Vedic Distinction

Often than not, we confuse these two things that we want to know while discussing the problem of the meaning life. Much of this confusion can be avoided if we bring in a distinction that the Rgveda makes. For the sake of convenience let us call this distinction the distinction between the Cosmic and the human. Let us put it clearly: We come across the word purusha in the Rgveda for the first time. There it is clear that the vedic Indians use the term purusha to refer to the universe as well as to man. This usage is parallel to the Vedic use of Rta meaning the cosmic order as well as the human conduct. This distinction between the Cosmic and the Human is crucial for our understanding of the purusharthas which when rendered into English means 'meaning of life'. In the light of this Vedic distinction we can clearly see that there are at least two senses in which we usually employ the expression 'meaning of life' - the cosmic sense and the human sense. If we do not keep this distinction between the cosmic and the human sense of the meaning of life in mind, confusion is likely to arise.

(i). The Cosmic Sense. For instance, if we do not keep these two senses of the meaning of life apart, it becomes impossible, for those who want to, to defend the position that life can be meaningful even if there is no God and no after life. If we reject the theory of cosmic design we can immediately infer that life is meaningless in the cosmic sense. But from this it does not logically follow that a particular person's life is meaningless in the human sense.

Another example of how this distinction works is: What do we mean, for instance, when we ask whether history has a meaning? To ask this question is to use the expression 'meaning of life' in the cosmic sense. Macbeth was giving a negative answer to this question in the cosmic sense when he exclaimed that life " is a tale1 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 1 Signifying nothing". What he was pointing out evidently was not that human life is part of a scheme designed by a superhuman idiot but that it is not a part of any design at all.

(ii). The Human Sense. Whereas we are using 'meaning of life' in the human sense when we ask whether a particular person's life has or had any meaning. Did Rishyasringa's life have any meaning? How do we come to know whether his life had a meaning?

The answer is that we can know that his life had meaning provided we know that he devoted himself to a cause. We know that Rishyasringa devoted himself to

ascetic practices at least for a period and therefore we can boldly say that his life had meaning. Or, let us take the obvious example of Gandhiji who devoted himself to the cause of 'sward'. Most of us would not hesitate to admit that Gandhiji led a

meaningful life. Whether we approve of all that he did or did not is not the point here. The point here is that we mean at least two things when we say he led a meaningful life. (a). That his life had an overall goal or goals that gave direction and coherence to

a great many of his actions. @). That he did what he did with a special zest that was not obvious before he became attached to his goal(s).

Here it may be asked whether a single human life, taken as a whole, can have one meaning, one purpose? It is not impossible for an adult individual to have just one large overriding purpose as is illustrated by Vibhandaka's life dedicated to asceticism or by Gandhiji's life dedicated to truth. But this need not be the case with most people. Many people in fact have a variety of purposes proper to different times in their lives. Rishyasringa had different goals appropriate to his life in the forest and in the palace.

In this connection, it may also be asked: Can the human race as a totality have a goal in life, just as an individual can have one? To think of any such aim is not easy, though communities may have aims in common, for instance, praying for rain in the kingdom of Anga.

5. The Subjective and the Objective

If commitment to a cause, purposefulness, is what gives meaning to a person's life, then it implies a further distinction between the subjective and objective within the human sense of the meaning of life. In the subjective sense, to say that a person's life is meaningful is to say that he is attached to some goals provided that he does not consider them trivial and that these goals are within his reach. Whereas when we declare that a person's life is meaningful in the objective sense, what we are saying is that he is attached to certain goals which are not only attainable but also of positive value. Purposes and Meaningful Purposes. In order to make this point clearer, we need to bring in one more distinction with regard to individual human purposes. That is, we need to distinguish between purposes and meaningful purposes. When 29

does a purpose become meaningful? A purpose becomes meaningful if it signifies values. If not, it becomes meaningless, trivial. Bringing Rishyasringa to the

Kingdom of Anga so that there would be rain was a meaningful purpose for the king Lomapada. This means that values are what gives meaning to life. This, of course, does not mean that there is no place for play, for things trivial, in human life.

6. Without God and Immortality

Before we pass on we need to settle a connected question already hinted at: Can life be meaningfu1,even if there is no God and no after life? There are people who answer this question in the affirmative. Is this position defensible? This question is related to a problem to be discussed in a later chapter: Does life make sense without the goal of moksha? Right now, let us limit ourselves to the problem of 'meaningful' life without God and immortality.

Without the possibility of eternal life human life can have no meaning. This is the position the character Ivan Karamazov, an atheist, in Dostoevsky's novel, The Brothers Karamazov, takes. For him, meaning is connected with value and value with eternal life. Therefore Ivan believes that the finitude of life is proof that it has no purpose.

7. Eternity and Purpose

Thus, while some hold that eternity is what gives meaning to human life, some

others argue that even eternal life would be without purpose. Wittgenstein puts this question in the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus:

Is not the riddle of eternal life itself as much a riddle as our present lye?

By way of commenting on from Dr. Jenny Teichman's article,

What have time and eterniy got ro do with purpose? Are they all not completely different things? For what reason should it be supposed that eternal things have more purpose than finite things? For all we know, the universe may be eternal, matter may be eternal, energy may be eternal, but we cannot tell whether they have a purpose, nor what such a purpose might be. Asking about the purpose of life, meaning of God's purpose in creating life, is much the same as asking about the purpose of matter or the purpose of energy. Although some people have claimed to be able fo answer these questions, I wiN put them to one side as being too dificult altogefher.8
Dr. Jenny Teichman goes on to make a distinction between the possible purposes of a Creator and the known purpose of mankind. One of the implications of this distinction is: Even if we know for certain that life was not brought into being by a Creator for his own purposes, humanity could and would still have its own purposes and goals.9

If this is true, then the connection between the concept of purpose and the concept of eternity is not obvious. If God exists, his purposes are different from ours. This means that there is no logical necessity that there should be God and after life in order for us to have meaningful life. This is not to deny the fact that belief in God and after life might be of use to people as far as their practical life is concerned.

8. Is Happiness the Ultimate Goal?

In spite of the variety of distinctions we have made so far, we haven? yet critically examined the question: What is the ultimate goal of life? What does it

mean to live out our lives with meaning? What is the ultimate value that gives human life its value? What makes life worth living? We have only stated that, according to

the Story of Rishyasringa, the goal of life is to live and that the
31

purusharthas are

what make life worth living. But there is a strong and

widespread view that it is

happiness which is the ultimate goal of life. If happiness is what makes life worth living then it comes in conflict with our contention that the ultimate goal of life is to live. Therefore an examination of the view that happiness is the ultimate value is called for before we proceed any further.

That happiness is the ultimate goal and that happiness is what gives human life its value is a Utilitarian view. No matter whether they are optimists or pessimists, the utilitarians in general hold that everyone desires happiness above all else. If we ask about people who may have no hope of happiness, then some of them do not even hesitate to suggest that such people should be 'helped to die'. According to their thesis, people who cannot contribute to the happiness of others would also deserve this type of timely help.

But this utilitarian thesis does not stand to reason.

For the thesis that

happiness is the ultimate goal of life is contradicted by the everyday behavior of ordinary people. Let me quote Dr. Jenny Teichman once again:

Ordinary people wish to go on living even when they are very unhappy. In reality
people behave as if they believe that just being alive is intrinsically good; in reality ordinary people behave as if life itself is an ultimate va1ue.10

Is not this behavior instinctive, it might be asked. Yes, it may well be. But

being instinctive is not unreasonable. The desire for happiness is also instinctive. To attribute ultimate value to happiness is like putting the cart before the horse. The fact

is that we instinctively desire to be happy because that helps us to stay alive, and not
the other way about. It is not that we instinctively want to stay alive in order to be

happy. To use a simple analogy, we do not live in order to eat; rather, we eat in order to live, even though eating makes us happy and content.

If this is true, then it makes perfect sense to believe that life even without happiness is worth living. This implies that even an unhappy life has value. In fact, this is the position that Philippa Foot, one of the few philosophers who have discussed the question of the intrinsic value of life, has argued for, against utilitarianism. According to her, it makes perfect sense to believe that life without happiness is worth living. In her paper 'Euthanasia' she explains how and why it is possible to regard even an unhappy life as having value.11 One of her important arguments is this: After all what do we mean'by a 'life worth living'? It means a life worth living for the

person who is living it. If this important point that Philippa Foot makes is valid, then
it does not matter whether or not your life is worth anything to anyone else. For example, it does not matter whether or not Vibhandaka's life is worth anything to the king of Anga, as far as Vibhandaka is living his life.

9. Life has Intrinsic Value

In short, what makes life worth living is its intrinsic value. This is true even of severely handicapped people. In other words, human life, happy or unhappy, is itself a good and has a value; this indeed is the way most people usually regard their own lives. Though we can confidently say that human life is good in itself, we must hasten to add that it must be an 'ordinary' human life in some minimum sense. What do we mean by this idea of 'ordinary human life'? It means a number of things: It has a minimum of basic human goods; A person is not driven to work far beyond hisher capacity; He/She has the support of a family or community; HeIShe can hope to

satisfy his hunger; Helshe has hopes for the future; Helshe can lie down to rest; and so on and so forth. To put it differently,the goal of life is to live. And, to live means that we may not die before our time; that we may survive and that, more than these, we may love our life, love others' lives and love one's and others' right to live. In short, four things that make a life 'ordinary' and thus meaningful are:

1. A sense of purpose

(motivation); 2. to have someone to love. 3. To have something to do 4. To have something to look forward to (hope). These are some of the things that the

purusharthas denote, as we shall see later. That is why we say that the purusharthas are what makes the goal of being alive meaningful.

Two things are obvious from the above observations. one is that the intrinsic value of life explicates the conceptual connection between the concept of life and the concept of good. For, the 'ordinary' human life just described above is good in itself and does not necessarily have to be happy to be worth living. The other obvious thing

is that

Philippa Foot's conclusion concerning the intrinsic value of life fits the

feelings which most people have about their own lives. Thus, it also follows common sense - which is not a bad thing at all in philosophy. 'Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy,' said Rabbi Abraham Heschel.

10. Unexciting Conclusions

Let
US

now enumerate the main conclusions that emerge from our discussion

of the meaning of life. One might find these conclusions quite unexciting. But this unexcitedness is not a reason for rejecting it. For, they help solve many a problem that arise in our interpretation of the purusharthas.

1. Life is meaningful both in the cosmic as well as in the human sense. 2.

Some lives are meaningful both in the subjective and the objective sense. Gandhiji's life may be taken as a fitting illustration of this kind of life. 3. Some lives are meaningful in the subjective sense but may not be meaningful in the objective sense. One might interpret Vibhandaka's life in this sense with some justification. 4. Some lives are meaningful in the objective sense but may not be meaningful in the subjective sense. The way Vaisali' life is conceived in the Story of Rishyasringa is a case in point.
5.

Some lives are at certain times not meaningful in either the

subjective or objective sense. The life of Judas after the betrayal of Jesus is often understood in this sense at least by some christians. 6. Individuals can have good reasons for feeling pessimistic, as is illustrated by the character Ivan Karamazov. 7. Philosophical pessimism does not stand to reason. 8. Even if we do not believe in God , life would be meaningful. For example, few Buddhists believe in a god but they believe in the sanctity of life. So is the case with some members of the medical profession. 9. Life can be quite meaningful even if God does not exist and even if there is no immortality and eternity. This is evidenced by the lives of some atheists.

11. Conclusion
Let us sum up what we have said so far in this section. Life is meaningful in one sense or another. For, life has intrinsic value and therefore its goal is to live. And what give content to this goal are the pumsharthas. How the pumsharthas make meaningful life possible shall become clearer as we go along. For the time being we assume the mutuality of the pumsharthas. We will have to analyze this mutuality though it has already been illustrated by the Story of Rishyasringa. Before this analysis, we shall examine the theory of pumsharthas first in general and then in particular, in next two chapters that follow.

REFERENCES
R g Veda 1.89.1
The story is summed up from C. Rajagopalachari's Mahabharata, pp.112-116. This story is also found in Ramayana, and i s visually told in a recent popular Malayalam Movie titled 'Vaisali'. Sri. Kuttikrishna Marar gives a detailed analysis of Vyasa's laughter in his critical study of Mahabharata in malayalam named Bharata paryatanam, pp. 107-114. Arthur Schopenhauer, T h e world a s Will and Idea, London, 1883, VolI11, p. 383. Clarcnce Darrow, "Is Life Wonh Living?" APamphlet, Girard, Kansas, no date. Tolstoy's views as stated in A Confession, the Gospel in Brief and W h a t I Believe, translated by Aylmer Mande, London, 1940. Kanadan is the author of the Vaisesika Sutras which are pre Buddhistic. His Sutras commence to explain virtue (dharma) according to which prosperity (abhyudaya) and salvation (nihsreyasa) are obtained. R. Balasubramanian and V. C. Thomas, eds., Perspectives in Philosophy Religion and Art, Essays in Honor of Margaret Chatterjee, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, 1993, p. 63. Ihid.. p. 65. Ihid.
As quoted by Dr. Jenny Teichman in "Philosophy and the Meaning of Life" in Perspectives in Philosophy Religion a n d Art, p. 65.